Youth leaders from Kosovo’s PLAY International visit MultiKulti

Sometimes young people choose not to rest on Sundays – they know how to use their time at its best. One of these warm and beautiful Sundays, a group of youth leaders representing the branch of PLAY International in Kosovo stopped by in Kumanovo for a short session of “exchange of expertise”: together with the members and volunteers of CID, we shared practices that we use in our work with young people.

Play International is an organisation that promotes mutual understanding and healthy lifestyle through sports. The group, consisting of young people from different regions of Kosovo, was patiently listening to the information being translated from English to Albanian, Serbian, Bosnian and Turkish.

They proved that language barriers can be easily overcome, if the will to have fun is strong enough.

We started by presenting our organisations and our main activities. We found out that, although our methodologies are different, we are pursuing the same goals. Aleksandra Cvetkovska and Florim Rexhepi prepared and implemented a workshop about identity, which the participants enjoyed a lot.

After a satisfying lunch, everybody stretched their legs because an hour of sports activities prepared by members of Play International followed. They amazed us with how well structured and effective their activities are and we experienced joy and personal satisfaction after engaging in these activities. We learned that, although competitive, they are meant to build a stronger sense of teamwork and cooperation.

The goodbye moment was impressively long – everybody exchanged contacts and one couldn’t ignore the happy smiles on everybody’s tired faces. To conclude our first encounter, we decided that a future cooperation would benefit both parts – because there is a lot we can learn from each other.

Thanks to the Center for Intercultural Dialogue for this report.

Center for Intercultural Dialogue (CID) is a non-governmental, non-profit youth organization that works on regional level in Macedonia. It was formed in May 2006 by active youth leaders and youth workers from Kumanovo.